Parents often provide their young children with “sippy cups” or other training cups to let children drink without spilling. Such cups typically include a lid with a drip-resistant spout that helps young children transition from baby bottles to regular cups. However, a drink must first be poured from its original container into the sippy cup, and the sippy cup lid attached, before the child can use it. The original container for the drink must be stored in a safe area until all its contents are used, sometimes after multiple fill-ups of the sippy cup. After use the sippy cup is typically cleaned and reused while the original container is typically discarded. This procedure is labor-intensive and often results in numerous sippy cups being scattered about, while the original drink containers are not utilized for drinking. It has been recognized that it would be beneficial to convert a regular drink container into a spill-resistant sippy cup. U.S. Pat. No. 8,286,827 B2, issued Oct. 16, 2012 to Yacktman, describes a sippy cup lid specially adapted to snap over the rim of a typical beverage can. But this only partially addresses the issue, because parents will still be faced with a deluge of sippy cup lids, which must be washed and reused. Moreover, drinks for children are increasingly packaged in containers other than standard beverage cans, while Yacktman's sippy cup lid will only fit standard beverage cans. For example, many drinks geared toward children, such as milk and juice containers at fast food restaurants, are now provided in plastic bottles with non-standardized screw-on lids of various shapes and sizes. Thus, a one-size-fits-all lid is not a feasible solution.
A disposable drink container popular with children is the flexible drink bag that is pierced by a plastic straw, an example of which is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,175,581 B2, issued Feb. 13, 2007 to Murray. While such drink bags eliminate the expense and labor associated with providing and maintaining separate sippy cups and lids, drink bags are not particularly spill-resistant, and are actually prone to squirting out their contents through the straw when the bag is compressed by dropping or squeezing.
What is needed is an inexpensive system and method of use that easily converts standard drink containers having any of a variety of possible sized and shaped lids into spill-resistant drinking containers for small children, without having to provide and maintain separate containers or lids.